No Favours Has He
by yapyap
Summary: Time travel: fascinating, tempting, and since a certain fateful day at the Ministry, utterly unreachable. Except for those determined to prove otherwise. SSxHG. HP crossover with Doctor Who, but can be read also without being familiar with the show.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story was originally written for Dacian Goddess in the 2010 round of the SSHG Exchange on LiveJournal. The original prompt was the following: 'Hermione is conducting research and experimentation to recreate and improve Time Turners. But are things going wrong or too right? Why is it she's been descended on by a surly fellow who calls himself The Doctor as well as Unspeakable Severus Snape?'

With thanks to my betas Refya and JunoMagic for their support, questions and grammar skills. This would have been a poorer work without your help.

Disclaimer: I don't own the settings or the characters.

* * *

**No Favours Has He**

**Chapter ****One: The Visitor**

"Just one more inch," Hermione muttered to herself, reaching towards the book—her goal—with her fingertips.

She was standing on tiptoes on top of an old, well-used stepladder. She'd been considering replacing it with a newer, higher and more solid version, but between her day job at the Ministry and her own research, she simply didn't have the time.

She took a deep breath, bit her lip and with a small push, managed to get hold of the book.

Unfortunately for Hermione, that final push was the metaphorical straw that broke the back of the camel; or, in this case, the stepladder, which toppled over, taking both her and the book with it. The bookshelf itself was, mercifully, attached to the wall and stayed put.

"Oww." Hermione groaned, attempting to shove the ladder aside.

"Need help?"

Hermione turned her head towards the source of the voice.

A man was standing on the far side of the room, leaning comfortably against the wall. A man that _felt_, rather than looked, vaguely familiar, somehow. She was certain she hadn't seen him before; she'd have remembered him. Dark spiky hair, a glint of something in his left ear, sunglasses, black T-shirt hanging off his lean body, black jeans… yes, she'd definitely remember someone looking like that.

The man cocked his head, obviously waiting for an answer.

"Oh," Hermione said. "No, thanks. I'll manage."

She stood up and dusted off her trousers, swearing at herself silently for leaving her wand on the desk. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my home?" she asked, attempting to sound calm. He hadn't tried to attack her or curse her; until she could get hold of her wand, she thought it best to act as if having strangers turn up in her study was something that didn't faze her in the least.

The air surrounding the man rippled visibly as he removed his sunglasses, and Hermione found herself staring into a face far more familiar.

A face she hadn't seen for six years.

Unless one counted seeing it in dreams, or in nightmares.

The face of Severus Snape.

* * *

_T__he castle had fallen silent; even the moans of the injured had quieted down as Morpheus had finally taken mercy on them and sent them into sleep, fitful and dream-ridden as it was._

_Her biggest secret—the Time-Turner she had Summoned, together with the Horcrux books, from Dumbledore's office a year before—clutched firmly in her fist, Hermione made her way out of the castle, taking care not to stumble over the bodies, dead or alive, lying in her path. She hesitated only for a moment when reaching the Shrieking Shack; her mind had been made up hours earlier._

_She chose the spot with care, picking a secluded area where she thought—believed—hoped no one would be waiting, ready to pounce. The chain of the Time-Turner slid easily around her neck. Taking a deep breath, she turned the little hourglass around. One, two, three, four, five… Enough times to go back to the moment, if her best guess was right, when Severus Snape, now hailed hero, was still alive. If barely._

* * *

Hermione felt blood drain away from her face.

Up until this moment, she hadn't been certain he had survived. She'd left the Shrieking Shack in a hurry, after dousing him with all the leftover potions she still had—dittany, Blood-Replenishing Potion, Snakeweed Solution. She couldn't risk anyone finding her there; not with the battle, in that timeline, still raging all around them.

And the next day, when they'd returned to the Shrieking Shack, Snape was gone.

"You…" she whispered. "So you survived."

"Observant as ever, Miss Granger." His lip curled in a familiar sneer.

Hermione noticed that the disguise—some sort of advanced glamour charm, unfamiliar to her?—had apparently only been applied to his face, as his clothing had not changed.

"Although I'm disappointed to see you so lax about security," he said. "You should always keep your wand at hand. Speaking of which, have you ever heard of a spell called _Wingardium Leviosa_? I find it quite handy when something is out of reach, amusing as it was to watch your efforts."

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment, willing her mind to calm. She stepped to the desk and picked up her wand.

"My home is protected from intruders," she said. "I don't need to be armed all the time. Those days are behind us. I don't know where you've been living these last several years, or what you have been doing, but surely you have noticed that some things have changed."

"Ah, yes. I did come across a few feeble layers of protective charms on your Floo." He raised an eyebrow. "Dismantling them was child's play, Miss Granger. I'd have thought that someone engaged in the kind of research you're doing would have more sense than that. Your work has caught our interest, and I'm quite sure there are other, less friendly people, who would be very keen on securing your results for their own use."

Her research? But—but that was top secret. She'd not told anyone about that. Not even Harry. Certainly not Ron. Ron was a darling, and she loved him dearly, now that they were back to being best friends and nothing else, but when he'd had a few pints, he was worse at keeping secrets than Hagrid. What could _Snape_, out of all people, possibly know about her research? And what did he mean by—

She shook her head, still a bit fuzzy from the fall and the shock of seeing Snape. In her home. Wearing jeans. Alive. In her home. Talking to her about— Ah yes, talking about her research, and insulting her skills at protecting her home. To be fair, he might have a point about that. As his presence in her study clearly proved. But then, this was Snape, not a wizard of average abilities, so of course he'd have managed what others would have failed at.

Right. Her research.

"You said 'our interest'." Hermione was determined not to lose her focus again. It had been years since Snape had managed to intimidate her. "'Our', not 'my'. Are there more of you—er, I don't mean more of _you_ specifically, as I can't imagine there being more than one of you, but…"

Damn. This wasn't going well at all. And his sneer had been replaced by a smirk. Infuriating man.

Snape gave her what was clearly a scrutinising look. "Perhaps we should sit down, have some tea?" he suggested at last. "You clearly need a moment to collect yourself. I apologize; I shouldn't have shocked you the way I did, but considering my reasons for coming here, I felt it best to arrive in person."

"How did you know about my research?"

Snape sighed. "The short answer would be that it's my job to know about things."

"And the long answer?"

"That tea I mentioned. You'll need it. And I could do with a cuppa myself. Disassembling protective charms on the go, even simple charms, makes one thirsty."

Hermione didn't see any reason to argue, so she gave in. "The kitchen's through there." She pointed behind Snape. "But of course you'd know about that, since it's your job and all, so go right ahead. I won't be a minute." She certainly didn't plan to leave her study unprotected, not with Snape snooping around.

* * *

Had her head not been reeling from the fall and the shock earlier on, Hermione thought she'd have figured out the truth on her own: it only made sense. Snape was an Unspeakable. Of course, he hadn't actually said that. He had, however, implied that he was, most of the time, an Unseeable, which explained why he hadn't been seen for all these years.

Hermione hadn't heard about Unseeables before. "You weren't supposed to." He looked smug. "It's a new position, created specifically for those of us whose very existence the general public shouldn't know about. Developing various new disguises and glamour spells is a part of it; it's inconvenient to have to rely on Polyjuice at all times. Tastes vile, too."

Her brain was aflutter with questions, but Snape made it clear she would have to make do with whatever he decided to share. "You understand, of course, that I cannot actually speak about all of it," he said, comfortably seated at her kitchen table, with a steaming mug of tea in front of him. "However, my department has ways to, how should I put it... Ways to tell when something happens that isn't supposed to happen."

Hermione nodded, feeling gloomy. She shouldn't have expected that her experiments, even conducted safely within the walls of her private study, would not be noticed.

"And tinkering with time," continued Snape, "has not been supposed to happen ever since you and your little group destroyed all the Time-Turners that were kept in the Ministry. At least it's not supposed to be happening outside our department." He raised an eyebrow at Hermione's curious look. "Did you really think the Department of Mysteries would simply decide to give up on the idea of time travel once the Time-Turners were gone? Some of our best minds have been working hard to recreate the device."

He picked up his mug, inhaled the aroma and gave an appreciative nod. "You wouldn't have anything to eat, would you? Toast will do."

Ordinarily, Hermione would not have tolerated anyone bossing her around in her own home. But she was too curious to know what he wanted from her. Outrage would have to wait.

When she set out to prepare some toast, Snape went on. "If it had been work similar to what we're doing, we might not have found it too important at this stage. However, recently our systems detected a certain, ah, afterglow, which could only be associated with the use of a real Time-Turner."

"And that afterglow led you here?" Hermione asked, willing her face to remain calm. There was no telling yet how much they knew.

Snape snorted. "No. However, I was reasonably certain I knew who may have the last remaining Time-Turner in her possession. My memory of certain events might be vague, but there have been two annoyingly persistent images in my dreams ever since the night of the battle. Hair—a lot of hair—and a glimpse of something golden."

Hermione shrugged. "That could have been anyone. And anything."

"But it wasn't. If I wasn't sure before, your reaction upon seeing me confirmed it. You were—surprised, certainly, but not as shocked as most people have been when seeing me alive." Snape looked right at her. "Look, Miss Granger. You have already admitted to doing research, and the idea of anyone having an interest in it is clearly disturbing you more than a supposedly dead man turning up in your study. You might as well tell me about it. I'm going to find out about it, one way or another."

"Was that a threat?"

"Only if you choose to interpret it as such." Snape smiled. It was not a calming sight.

* * *

_Hermion__e's flat, fourteen months earlier._

_"__Bugger!" Hermione glared at the Time-Turner on her desk. She'd tried every possible way to make it give up its secrets. Spells. Charms. Curses, both widely known and not. Legilimency. Soaking it in potions. Incantations so old the parchments they'd been written on had crumbled to nothingness when she'd finished reading them off the page. Transfiguration. Banishing the exterior. Disassembling the case with a sturdy screwdriver._

_Nothing. It sat on the desk, shiny and whole and undisturbed, mocking her._

_It only made her more determined. To figure it out, to get to know it, to recreate it. To improve it._

* * *

Endless days and nights later, Hermione had finally cracked it. How, she did not quite know. A combination of _feeling_ it, letting her magic course through it, welcoming the flow of the magic imprisoned in its core into her—brain and body and soul. She had let it take charge; it had dictated the necessary steps to her.

"You do realise you owe me a life debt, yes?" Hermione asked. "If you figured out what happened that night. So threatening me won't work."

Snape shrugged. "I can't kill you. I can't put your life in danger. I'd be inclined to try and save you if someone else endangered your life. That's about it. There are other ways in which I could harm you, were I thus disposed. It's not really how we work, though—it's not how I work. I just want to know more about it. Both because it's my job and because I'm curious."

Hermione considered Snape's words. If she was being honest with herself, she had to admit it was a tempting opportunity. As much as she'd wanted to keep her work to herself, after all this time… Well, it would be nice to talk to someone about it. Someone who could—would—understand. She had planned to share her work with the Department of Mysteries anyway, once she had perfected it. And if they already knew…

She made up her mind. "If you're done with that," she motioned towards the tea and the toast, "you'd better come back to the study."

* * *

_It had not been enough for her to stop at finding out how to make a working Time-Turner. That had been the first goal, and the more important one. _

_She wasn't sure why this mattered so much. Perhaps she still felt guilty over her part in their original destruction, even though they hadn't done it on purpose. Even so, having had a hand in such an extraordinary part of magical knowledge disappearing forever was not an idea that sat well with her. _

_She hadn't given it much thought at the time, but once those frantic days when nothing but Voldemort, and the war, and helping Harry and her maybe-relationship with Ron were all things of the past, the realisation of the havoc they had wreaked at the Ministry in her fifth year hit her._

* * *

"This is the original." Hermione pointed at the Time-Turner she had so carefully kept a secret all those years. "And this is what I've come up with so far."

Her working copy—a rectangular box with a few tangled tubes inside—bore no outward resemblance to the sleek form of the hourglass next to it. She figured there was no point in Transfiguring it into something smoother until she was quite finished. And she was close… so close.

"Before you ask—yes, it's fully functional. It does what the original does. I've tested it, although very briefly, in order to avoid creating paradoxes or running into problems. From what I can tell, both theoretically and in practice, it takes the user back to the past. I've also integrated some basic principles of Apparation; if you have a clear destination in mind, it will take you there."

"Impressive." Snape raised an eyebrow. "From my own brief experiences with a Time-Turner many years ago, I remember they could be quite moody. You could never be quite sure if you were taken to where you had been in the original timeline or if you stayed where you were when using the device."

He reached out, stopping just before his hand touched the new Time-Turner. "May I? I'm not going to test it."

Hermione nodded. "Go ahead, poke it all you like. It's stable."

Snape picked the prototype up and examined it from all sides. Hermione couldn't help but smile at his almost reverent look.

"Very impressive indeed," he said, once he'd spent a few moments with his eyes closed, holding the Time-Turner in his palm and appearing to concentrate in silence. "You have, on your own, managed something our team of time travel specialists have yet to crack."

"Luck and intuition." Hermione shrugged. "And a lot of hard work and frustration."

Snape placed the object back on the desk. "I have a feeling there is something else. I admit I may have misjudged your abilities when you were at Hogwarts, as I certainly didn't expect you to be able to do original research of this scale, but I also remember your drive and ambition. And if you've already come this far… You haven't stopped here, have you?"

* * *

_The future. Hermione had grown up with plenty of Muggle sci-fi work surrounding her—books, TV, films, even theoretical articles in scientific and popular science magazines. And she'd always been fascinated by the idea of time travel._

_Time travel into the future, to be exact. Well, the past as well, which was what had excited her the most about getting her Time-Turner from McGonagall: the idea of travelling to the past, even if it was only to keep up with her classes, was mind-bogglingly amazing._

_But the future… That had been her ultimate dream._

* * *

"I'm still working on that part," she said. "I've been reading up on time travel. The Muggles have some interesting theories. I don't think I understand it all, as most of it is firmly based in physics and theory, and I don't think magic works quite the same way, but I've been having some ideas. Rather vague ideas so far, but I feel as if I'm getting close. I only need to work out how to incorporate travelling into the future with what the Time-Turner can already do."

"Anything I could help with?"

Hermione looked at him, surprised. "Why would you—wait, you're not planning to just find out in detail what I've done so far and am working on, so you could pass on the information, are you?"

"What do you take me for, a messenger boy?" Snape looked affronted. "When I said I'm working in the Department of Mysteries, I didn't mean my job was running errands for other people—or gathering information for them. No, I'm genuinely interested, and I thought we've been working towards the same goals, so it would be reasonable to join forces."

He sighed. "If you like, I could draw up a contract guaranteeing that you will get full recognition for the work you have done, including for any discovery, major or minor. Should you agree to accept my assistance, any future discoveries would of course be credited to both of us."

Hermione rubbed her temples, thinking. She hadn't exactly lied when she'd said she was feeling as if she was getting close. The trouble was that she'd been feeling that way for several months now, and she wasn't any closer at all. If anything, she was simply going around and around in circles. Getting another person to review her work with a fresh look might be just the thing she needed.

As much as it hurt her pride to admit that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter ****Two: The Triumph**

_There is something… wrong. I feel it in my bones. No. Deeper than that. In my blood. Wait—is blood deeper than bones? Not if one thinks in layers, I suppose. Bones first, then tissue. But it__'s not my bones that the knowledge comes from._

_It's in our blood, this sense of the flow of time. Only it's just _my_ blood now. No one else to feel it. _

_And this sense is telling me that there is something wrong. Someone is messing with time. Someone who shouldn't be messing with time._

* * *

"I think we've cracked it!"

The jubilant glee in Granger's voice made Severus want to grin. Not that he'd have been careless enough to do that. Cool, calm and collected: this was Severus' motto. One of his many mottos anyway, depending on what the situation called for.

He took the prototype from her and examined it. It looked the same as it had always done, of course. But he felt he needed to do something while he was trying to grasp what they'd just achieved. If Granger was right—but she generally was.

"A way into the future." He swallowed. "We won't know without testing it, though."

If they had indeed managed it—if the testing was going to be a success—then it was more than worth the three months of evenings spent in Granger's company. At least she wasn't nearly as irritating a research partner as she'd been a schoolgirl.

He might actually begin to miss those evenings.

"Are you sure—completely sure—that this last incantation works?" He knew she was, but they couldn't afford a mistake. If they were wrong… Perhaps he should check on his last will and testament before they took it to the next level and went ahead with the experiment. It was possible that some things needed to be changed since he'd drawn it up.

Granger nodded, her eyes shining with eagerness. "I'm sure. I felt it. Inside me. You know, the way I felt when I'd cracked the principles of the original. It just felt right."

And she'd been right. He'd tested her copy of the Time-Turner, of course. It worked, just as she said it would.

"So…" Severus cleared his throat. "When are we going to try it?"

Granger shrugged. "I'm ready when you are. Unless you want to wait until tomorrow?"

Suddenly this didn't seem like the best idea ever any more.

He wasn't afraid. Well, maybe just a little, but who wouldn't be? Which sane person wouldn't be, he amended, taking a look at Granger who was practically bouncing with enthusiasm. It was just—all the practicalities of it that they needed to get right first. Make sure everything was documented, that every step of their research was clearly written down in case… In case it was needed, if the experiment was not a complete success.

"Tomorrow would be sensible," he said. "I'll look through the notes first. We really needn't rush this." He didn't have to tell her he wasn't in a hurry to risk putting an end to his life, now that he was finally enjoying all it had to offer.

Granger handed him a sheaf of parchment. "Suit yourself, although you'll find that everything is in order. At least one of us would have noticed if the Dicta-Quill had stopped working."

He knew she was right. It was silly, really, to delay it.

"Fine." He scowled, mostly to cover up the anxiety that was playing merry havoc with his insides. "Let's do it. Where to, and most importantly, when to?"

* * *

"Give it back to me!" Hermione yelled, trying to wrench the prototype out of Snape's hand. "You idiot! I told you I will be the one to do it. It's a sensitive instrument, and whether you like it or not, my understanding of it, right now, surpasses yours by far!"

She heaved a deep sigh when Snape didn't budge. That stupid, obstinate man! How could she have been foolish enough to think he had started showing some respect for her, both as a person and a fellow researcher? All those months of working together must have softened her brain.

"I think you should look around first." His words were quiet, barely above a whisper.

"What?" Hermione demanded. "We're… Uh."

Moments earlier, they'd finally agreed on their destination (not before she'd nearly lost her voice arguing with him). It had to be a place where they would not risk running into themselves in the linear timeline. It had to be a place where they could have a clear, objective way of telling the right time. And, preferably, a place where no one would notice a few people just materialising out of thin air.

A quiet, always empty alleyway with a clear view to the Big Ben. Guaranteed to show the right time. Right enough for their purposes in any case; Hermione figured that a few minutes here or there didn't matter for their first test. Three hours into the future.

That had been the plan.

And then, once she'd started to loop the string of the prototype around their necks, Snape had grabbed hold of the instrument and turned it around, saying something about wanting to make sure she didn't get it wrong… At which point she'd tried to take it back, and…

And obviously, something had gone wrong.

The location—that had also been her job, concentrating on the spot she had in mind—was right. As far as she could tell. The Houses of Parliament were there, anyway… but nearly everything around it, and them, was not the way she remembered London.

She swallowed.

"Well… It's the future all right, I guess." She attempted to give Snape an encouraging smile. The desire to yell at him was gone; she could not and would not risk having him stride off Merlin knows where and leave her alone. Definitely not until she had her Time-Turner prototype back, anyway.

Snape was standing completely still, taking in the surroundings.

It wasn't so much that they were standing in the middle of a jungle of glass and metal. It wasn't even so much that the skyscrapers all around the Westminster Palace completely dwarfed it—and by _skyscrapers_, she meant towers that were almost literally scraping the sky, with tops disappearing into the clouds. It wasn't even the—cars?—that were zipping around them in every direction, including up and down.

It just all felt so alien. She felt like an alien. This was not her London. Not even her Muggle London.

"We should go back," she whispered. "This isn't right."

Snape, who now seemed more collected, rolled his eyes at her. "How do you suggest we do that? We don't even know what year this is, never mind anything more exact. We can't return without knowing that. Besides, where's your sense of adventure?"

Hermione gave him an annoyed look. "I've had it with adventures, thank you very much." Even so, she had to admit that he was right—they really needed to take a look around, to find out even approximately how many turns they'd need in order to return. Standing in a confined, narrow, dark alleyway between two sky-reaching buildings wasn't how she wanted to spend the rest of her life, and unless a fresh newspaper with the date printed on it landed magically at their feet, they weren't going to find the answers they needed by staying put.

Snape was inspecting their Time-Turner again. "I wonder…" he said. "My guess is that we're at least a few hundred years from our own time. Possibly more. This means we would have had to turn the prototype hundreds of thousands of times to get here. I can't see how we could have managed that."

Hermione nodded. "I know. I was just thinking the same thing. I did at one point consider adding a larger dial, to enable travelling more than just a few hours into the past or future, but that was only a thought. Something to look into later on."

"This does rather complicate matters." Snape looked at her. "A thought, you said. What if the device somehow incorporated it into its design? If it can interpret our _thoughts_ about the desired location, perhaps it's not all it can do. Although I certainly wasn't thinking about the far future, and I assume you weren't either."

"Quite." Hermione looked around again. "Still, it might be worth a try. We could just think about the moment we left home and hope to get back…" She trailed off. "Do you see that?"

The sky was shimmering, crackling in places—iridescent blue blotches electrified with sparks. Hermione could have sworn she _heard_ it, above and beyond the background hum of the city.

"Lightning?" she asked Snape, hoping that he'd say yes but knowing that he wouldn't.

Snape gave her a look that clearly said what he thought of her question. "Unless lightning has changed considerably from our time, I don't think so. Still, I don't expect it's anything to worry about."

Hermione wasn't so sure but thought it best not to think about it. They had far more pressing concerns.

* * *

_Idiots! Just what__?—who?—This needs to be stopped before it's too late._

_I rush back to the control room. There is no time to wait for Rose; I can pick her up again once I'm back. If I don't deal with this now… I don't even want to think about it._

* * *

They started walking, randomly, hoping to avoid catching anyone's attention. The plan was to look around a little, to satisfy their curiosity about this time and place, and to find out the date. Preferably also the time, but they could approximate that, especially once they knew what month it was. Snape's guess so far had been "around six in the evening". Hermione was still of the mind that simply thinking about their desired destination should do the trick, but she had to agree that it would be safer to have a backup plan, such as knowing how far back they needed to go, in case her idea didn't work.

"Hold on," Snape snapped. "Do you hear that?"

A wheezing, groaning sound filled the air. There was something vaguely familiar about it, although Hermione couldn't quite place it. She checked to make sure her wand was instantly accessible if needed, noticing Snape do the same.

Another crackle from the sky pulled her attention away from the suspicious sound for a moment. There was something... She shook her head. No, whatever it was, it was an illusion. Or a spacecraft—they must have spacecraft in this age.

When she turned again, she nearly collided with a tall man, managing to check her step just before losing her balance. Snape caught her arm to ensure she didn't fall; she gave him a brief smile of thanks and raised her eyes at the stranger. He looked as incongruous with the surroundings as they did. In fact, he'd have looked right at home in their own time. Short dark hair, battered leather jacket, black trousers... She wouldn't have given him a second look in Muggle London of 2004.

And he was absolutely livid.

She instinctively took another step backwards, fighting the wish to grab her wand. They hadn't done anything. The stranger was probably just really pissed off at something or someone else, and they only happened to get in the way. _No hexing Muggles_, her brain reminded her. _Especially not here and now. Not unless it can't be helped._

"Are you the fucking idiots that have been messing with time?" the man demanded, after giving them—and their Muggle clothes—a long look. "Don't even try to deny it. I can see you're not from here, and I don't mean that you're from around the block or from the Midlands or something."

He focused on Hermione. "You. Both of you, but you in particular. You've been around a bit, haven't you? I can sense it. Time travellers. I can always tell."

Snape gave the stranger a disdainful look. "And what if we are? What's it to you?"

The stranger opened his mouth, ready to say something, when another crackle from the sky nearly deafened them. He looked up, and the anger in his face gave way to something else.

Fear.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter ****Three: The Stranger**

"Run!"

The stranger's voice was so commanding that it didn't even occur to Severus to disobey. He tried to grab Granger's hand, but she was already moving, fleeing in the direction the man had pointed out, hair askew, wand in hand.

He ran after her, his long legs easily catching up with her.

"Why are we running?" she asked once the stranger skidded to a halt in front of a blue box. Severus had the oddest feeling that the box looked familiar; the shape did, anyway.

"You see that?" The stranger pointed towards the sky. "That is bad news. Very bad news." He looked at the two of them and nodded towards the box, a key in his hand. "You'd better get inside. The least you can do after causing all this trouble is help me put an end to it."

Severus resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. He still didn't know what was going on or what the bad news was. Or how squeezing inside a small box with Granger and the stranger would help them. He did have an odd feeling in his gut, though… Something was going on. And on second thought, squeezing into a small box with Granger was not exactly a repulsive idea.

He wondered briefly if that was the stranger's purpose and if he was some sort of pervert out to scare innocent bystanders into close quarters with him… Well, if that was the case, he had his wand, and he knew how to use it.

* * *

The stranger opened the door and ushered them in.

_Not a Muggle__ then_, was Hermione's first thought once she had taken in the large room. It looked—different. Some sort of control room, perhaps? All metal, shiny in places, muffled in others; metal grilles covering the floor, metal panels all over the walls, muted metal—trees? no, impossible—not raising up from the floor to meet the ceiling high up.

The stranger looked at them almost expectantly. "Well?" he demanded, sounding surly. "Aren't you going to say anything? It's bigger inside than out, and all that? Everyone else does, so let's get that out of the way."

Hermione shrugged. "So is my handbag."

She saw Snape's lips twitch.

"What are you?" the stranger asked, shaking his head. "I mean you look human, you sound human... twentieth century human, early twenty-first perhaps, from the way you dress. Yet you're not in the least surprised by my ship, and you obviously have some rudimentary grasp of time travel technology, considering that whatever you did, I could practically see the spikes flying off the Bocca scale."

"Rudimentary?" Hermione exclaimed. "I'd say that being able to travel both into the past and into the future is anything but!" Rudimentary, indeed. The nerve of that man!

The stranger shook his head, already at work at some panels of what looked to be a control console of sorts. "You still don't even realise what you've done, have you? Fooling around with things far beyond your understanding! If I don't get this sorted, you can wave your home world goodbye."

"Our home world? You're not from here, then?" Snape asked.

"Nope. I'm the Doctor, by the way." The stranger flashed them a wide grin. Hermione wondered if he was perhaps mentally unstable; going from anger and end-of-the-world declarations to this sort of jolliness surely couldn't indicate anything else. Although she did notice the grin didn't reach his eyes, which remained grim and determined.

Snape had stepped right next to her. _"The Doctor?"_ he whispered into her ear. "I'm not sure if you'd know, but I've just remembered something... there was a show on the telly about a time-traveller in a police box, much like the one we saw outside when I was a child," he continued quietly. "There is something very strange going on here."

The stranger—the Doctor, as he'd introduced himself—apparently had excellent hearing.

"A show? On the telly? About me?" He looked completely flabbergasted. "I _knew_ I should never have taken humans with me! Let them go, and the first thing they do is run to the bloody BBC and tell everyone!" He rolled his eyes. "Well, cannot be helped now. I don't know what you think you know about me but yes, I'm the Doctor. I travel in my ship, which is called the TARDIS. Yes, it looks like a police box outside. And yes, I'm an alien. A Time Lord, in fact, so I know all there is to know about time. Anything else?"

"How about you stop with all this doom and gloom and tell us just what we're supposed to have done?" Hermione asked, about to to lose her patience. Alien or not, if he was accusing her of bringing about the end of the world by a simple jaunt into the future, he'd better start giving them some answers!

The Doctor took one more look at the panel in front of him, hit a few buttons and turned around.

"You, in your foolish desire to do what mankind could not possibly control yet, have torn apart the fabric of time." He nodded towards Snape. "Can I see that? That thing you're so obviously and so stupidly proud of?"

Snape glanced at Hermione. She hesitated; letting a potentially insane stranger, who had already lured them into his ship, anywhere near the Time-Turner was a risk. But there was only one of him and two of them, and they were armed. So she nodded. As long as Snape didn't actually let him have it, but she didn't think he'd be that careless. "Go ahead."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Not bad, really. Completely dangerous and stupid, but—look, who _are_ you people? You really shouldn't be having access to anything of this kind yet, not for at least another thirty to forty thousand years. Where did you get this?"

"I made it," Hermione said. "We've always had the means to travel to the past; I just added the future part to it. As for who we are…" The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy didn't count with aliens, did it? She decided to throw caution to the wind and continued, "I'm Hermione Granger, and that's Severus Snape." She nodded towards Snape. "We're wizards. And that is a magical device. We can manipulate time and matter."

"Wizards?" The Doctor laughed. "Don't be daft. There is no such thing as magic. You have me intrigued, though. If we had more time, I'd love to analyse your blood—I could bet a Venusian ringold on someone having tinkered with your DNA. Probably added quite a bit. There are several races I can think of who have those abilities, and some of them used to roam the universe, looking for emerging species to play with."

He strode to the door and opened it. "Right," he said. "Take a look for yourselves."

* * *

Granger had been right. It certainly wasn't lightning, but it also wasn't anything natural.

The screeching, high above them, was nearly deafening at times. The city around them had ground to a halt: cars—or whatever the flying/zigzagging/stumbling vehicles were called in this era—had stopped, hovering in the air uncertainly; for the first time since their arrival, he could also spot people, some gesticulating wildly, some frozen in place in their hovercrafts.

The clouds, punctured by the high-rise buildings from below, were being ripped apart from above by massive claws, which were withdrawn as soon as they appeared.

"This is what you have done." The Doctor's voice was low. "They haven't broken the layer between this universe and theirs—yet. I'm afraid it's only a question of time, and it might not take them long."

Severus turned around. "What are they? And you keep saying we are responsible. I cannot see—"

"No, you cannot see! That's the problem with you humans, you can never see!" The Doctor shook his head. "You're playing with things you don't understand. You like to think you can control time—that you have some sort of power over it, just because your forefathers, for whatever reason, managed to put together a toy that can take you back a few hours."

He pointed upwards. "Time Wraiths. Not something you'd have encountered before, and you can thank your lucky stars for that."

"Time Wraiths?" Granger asked.

"Yes. Transcendental beings, older than your universe, and with a voracious appetite. This appears to be the vanguard; if we're lucky, there are only a few of them, here and there. And they are the weakest of the Ancients. They cannot break down the barriers easily."

"How are we responsible for their appearance?" Severus asked.

The Doctor whistled. "Haven't you been listening? As I've said more than once, you were playing with things you don't—can't—understand. You can't just play with time! The time vortex is an incredibly complex thing, and unless you have full and complete control over it, you're guaranteed to muck things up."

He looked first at Granger, then Severus. "How familiar are you with the concepts of temporal physics? Quantum mechanics? How much do you know about other dimensions but the four your kind generally encounters?"

Granger looked down. "I've read a bit. I thought it would help me to solve some issues I had, but... it was useless. Well, not useless, of course—knowledge never is. Fascinating, but not helpful in what I needed to know and do."

Severus shrugged. "I always felt magic held all the answers." He'd tried at first, but... Goading Granger was so much more fun than having serious intellectual conversations with her. Even if she wasn't nearly as irritating as she'd been as a student, she could be so dreadfully dull sometimes, reminding him of his colleagues in the Department of Mysteries. There was more to life than books and research. He had a whole new appreciation of that ever since his miraculous recovery (that he refused to spend too much time thinking about; Granger was on his mind too much as it was).

"So you didn't even attempt to grasp the basics of what you were doing!" The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I won't bother going into the specifics too deeply then, but in short, the Time Wraiths, their cousins the Reapers, the Chronovores, the Eternals—they've all existed since well before the Big Bang. They usually hang out in what some of your people refer to as the Calabi-Yau space; the Six-Fold Realm is their own name for it. It's sort of where all the dimensions left over from this universe are hiding out—there's this universe that we're currently in, then there is the time vortex, and finally, the Six-Fold Realm."

Granger nodded, although privately Severus doubted whether she was actually following The Doctor.

"This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with us?" Severus asked.

"It has everything to do with you!" The Doctor stepped back inside the TARDIS. Severus followed, as did Granger. Once he had closed the door, the Doctor continued, "A very long time ago, an agreement was made: the Ancient Covenant. It keeps this plane separate from the Six-Fold Realm and forbids the transcendental beings to enter this universe. However, if someone opens a passage from this side, they are allowed to breach the barriers—it's considered extending an invitation."

"And we opened that passage." Granger blanched. "That's what you're saying, isn't it?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Your experiments—well, time is a volatile, fragile thing. As I said, you'd better have damn good control over it. One mistake, and you risk rupturing the very fabric of time, opening a door between your universe and theirs."

"What do they do?" Severus asked. He had a strong feeling that he wouldn't like the answer.

The Doctor's face grew grave. "They eat time. Devour it. Feast on it. Time, timelines... People's entire lives, history—all gone within moments. Anything they can get into their clutches. The Reapers love paradoxes. I don't think you've caused any yet, so perhaps we'll be safe from them for now, but the others… It won't be long until the Chronovores take notice. Your very presence here keeps them coming, like moths to light, except that the light won't burn them—they will extinguish it."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter ****Four: The Doubt**

Hermione closed her eyes. When she'd worried that something in her experiments might go wrong… It hadn't been anything like this. She couldn't have imagined this in her worst nightmares.

There had to be something they could do to make things right again. Magic had got them this far—surely magic could help them out, too? Even if that alien, the Doctor, might scoff about it and look down at it; it didn't matter; magic was real. It existed. It _worked_. No matter the reason or the origin (aliens mucking about with human DNA, in order to give them magic? Seriously? And how would that explain her and the other Muggle-borns? Hah, as if!), magic was in her veins, flowing in her blood, crackling in her fingertips, willing her to release it.

The Doctor's voice interrupted her thoughts.

"It's started."

He pointed at a screen screwed to the console, showing them the outside. A huge creature burst forth from the sky, translucent wings spread wide. Hermione could see a young man in the hovercraft closest to them, frozen in shock, growing older and older in front of their eyes until he was nothing but a shrivelled husk, scattering into dust as it fell against the steering wheel.

He'd looked barely older than Ron or Harry. Her own age.

When the creature flapped its wings and turned its attention to another vehicle—Hermione couldn't help but think it almost looked like it was licking its lips in anticipation—she raised her head and looked at the Doctor.

"How do we put a stop to this?"

Behind her, Snape cleared his throat. "There must be some way—" His voice broke. "I suppose it would be too easy to expect that if we just returned to where we came from, it would put an end to this?"

"I'm afraid so," said the Doctor. "And there's no reasoning with them, either; no appealing to . But there may be a way… Mind you, I have no idea if it works." He flashed them a wide grin. "Let's get started!"

He rushed to another console and started frantically pushing some buttons and levers, muttering something to himself. Hermione could make out only a few words here and there, and half of them could just as easily have been in another language, although there was something about coordinates and time factors.

"I'm trying to pinpoint the exact location of the rupture," he explained over his shoulder, his fingers flying over the keys. "I thought it would have been here, but apparently not—the barrier between this world and theirs is quite thick here." The Doctor nodded towards the screen. "See, while one Chronovore has passed through, it's still holding, if barely. And the Time Wraiths haven't got through at all."

"This is a good thing, yes?" Hermione swallowed. The Chronovore—time-eater?—was floating from one vehicle to the next, leaving destruction in its wake. If just one could do that much damage…

"Why aren't they moving?" asked Snape. "The people, I mean. They're all—it's as if they cannot move."

"Yup." The Doctor drummed his fingers on the console. "The Chronovores can freeze time, make it stand still. Oh, they can move as they please; it's everyone around them who is affected. If we were out there now—you two wouldn't be able to move either, in spite of that fancy contraption you've got. Lucky for us, the TARDIS has its own protections built in against that sort of thing."

He looked around, as if searching for something. "Can I have that contraption of yours—does it have a name, by the way?—back for a bit? Oh, and yes, coming back to your question—" he turned to Hermione again, "—that is a good thing. A very good thing indeed. Even with the invitation, it'll take them some time to break through properly, and unless I'm wrong, which I am usually not, it's the same in all the heavily populated areas. Which, in this particular time in Earth's history, is almost all of it, except..."

Instead of finishing the sentence, the Doctor produced a small wand-like object from his pocket and started poking at Hermione's Time-Turner, which he waved around near the console. It looked like he was trying to establish some sort of connection.

"A ha!" he proclaimed after some whizzing and whirring and handed the Time-Turner back to her. "Just as I thought!"

And with a "Hold on, we're taking off!" the central column of the hexagonal console started rising and falling, and the abrupt and fully unexpected motion threw Hermione backwards, until she landed in a most undignified heap right on top of Snape.

* * *

_It's started. I can feel the timelines around me unravelling, devoured by the handful of Chronovores who have already made their way through. All these what-weres and what-might-have-beens, gone forever… At least those two seem cooperative, if wary: I think I now know where, and how, to put a stop to it all. If I get there in time._

* * *

Had this happened in any other situation, Hermione might have acknowledged—if only to herself—that falling on top of Snape wasn't _that_ far from certain things she might, very privately, have occasionally contemplated.

As it was, it was a hard landing, and she groaned when she pushed herself up again. "Would it kill you to put some weight on?" she asked, offering Snape her hand to help him up. His only answer was to roll his eyes, but Hermione could have sworn that he was trying to hold back a smile.

Her eyes fell on the wand she was still grasping. "Doctor?" she ventured, not entirely sure how she should address the alien. "Are we—we're moving, yes? Going away?"

"Yup."

"Just like that, leaving those, those things to kill the people we left behind?"

"Yup."

"But—" She shook her head. "We should have stayed. We could have done something. Tried to fight them."

The Doctor turned and gave her a look. "Fight them? With what? That stick you're holding?"

Hermione was tempted to hex him, just to show what that 'stick' could do. If only they hadn't been in a moving spaceship! Hexing the only person on board who could drive—fly?—it didn't seem like the best idea.

"Would you like a demonstration of what that _stick_ can do?" It had been a long time since she'd last heard Snape's voice quite this cold. "Let me assure you, whether you believe in magic or not, it's far from useless."

Snape was holding his wand too, now. He twirled it casually between his fingers, and before Hermione could recognise the movement, thick ropes had curled around the Doctor's arms and legs.

"Impressive." The Doctor nodded. "And you think this parlour trick would also work against the Chronovores? Beings made of the fabric of time and space itself, without physical bodies? While you're frozen in time, leaving them free to drink up your whole life before you could as much as think about it?"

Snape didn't reply, but Hermione could tell from the way his nostrils flared that he didn't appreciate being ridiculed. She supposed it had been a foolish thought, but they couldn't just idly sit by, doing nothing!

"Could you remove these now?" The Doctor pointed at the ropes, with some difficulty. "We have a landing to make, and unless you'd like to crash down, I need to move."

Hermione pointed her wand at him. _"Finite Incantatem!"_

* * *

When the TARDIS doors opened and they stepped outside, Hermione staggered backwards. The heat and the dust seemed to form an almost physical wall. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart, but instead of making things better, it sent her coughing.

"I suggest a shield spell," Snape said in a low voice. "It won't hold for long, but it will help."

Hermione did as he'd recommended. The feeling of relief was instant. "I take it that we're not in London anymore?" she asked, directing the question at both men.

"Africa!" the Doctor exclaimed, spreading his arms. "The Sahara desert. One of the few places still relatively uninhabited. We should be safe from the Chronovores here for the time being; they will focus their efforts on the larger population centres first."

"Are we going to just hide here or actually do something?" Hermione asked. "You mentioned something about an idea earlier."

The Doctor nodded. "We're going to look for the rip in the barrier—the opening you tore into the time vortex. I couldn't get an exact location; the TARDIS is still analysing the data, but I thought we could start the search in some of the more obvious areas. In planets similar to Earth, that separating layer tends to be thinnest in areas relatively close to the equator and the poles."

"Wait," said Snape. "If you think the rip is around here, then why isn't this place swarming with those time-eating creatures? The Chronovores?"

"Good question!" The Doctor beamed. "It's not quite that simple, however. We're not just talking about the three dimensions you're familiar with, here. Basically, the physical location of the opening has very little bearing on where they can, and will, actually materialise. It might happen here, but they'd try to move somewhere else as soon as they've had a sniff around and noticed this isn't where the party is. And in addition, the rip—I believe it's still very small, but it's widening at a quick pace—doesn't mean they can just come and go as they please; they will still need to make an effort."

"How are we going to look for it? Stare up into the sky and see if we can spot a hole?" Deep down, Hermione knew sarcasm wasn't warranted. _She_ had caused this. Well, with the help of Snape, but it had been her project, her work and her breakthrough. And this Doctor might be an annoying git looking down his nose at them, but he also seemed to be their best hope in making things right again.

She'd helped bring down Voldemort. She didn't particularly want to be the person to cause the end of all life on Earth. Or all human life, anyway. She supposed that non-sentient timelines and histories wouldn't interest the Chronovores. Or maybe they'd move on to the wildlife and pets for dessert once the main course was gobbled up.

If there was any life apart from humans left on the planet. She had yet to see or hear any evidence of birds or other animals.

The Doctor was eyeing the sky with a critical look on his face.

"More or less, yeah. It might not look like much, though." He fished out his little wand-like device again, set it whirring and pointed it at the sky. "Hmm. I was sure it was going to be here. All the signs indicated— Whoa! Look out!"

Her once strong battle reflexes dulled by several years of comfortable life spent in research, Hermione was slower to react than Snape, whose wand was out in an instant. "No sudden movements," he instructed in a low voice. "You, too, Doctor. I can incapacitate it in an instant, but there may be others around."

Hermione, whose field of view had been blocked by a large boulder, finally saw what the men were staring at: a large lioness was standing slightly to the left of the rock, looking right at them. Her approach had been so quiet that Hermione hadn't heard a thing.

She gulped. True, she was a Gryffindor and thus used to the idea of lions—in theory. As long as they appeared on coats of arms or on her school robes, she adored lions. Magnificent beasts, courageous and agile and strong, able to put an end to an enemy with a single bite…

Hermione wondered if a Shield Charm would help against predators—it was something she'd somehow never thought of before. Perhaps it was because all her meetings with large and dangerous beasts, be it Fluffy or Lupin, had taken place before she could cast a decent shield.

Considering that it had never been mentioned in their Care of Magical Creatures class, she suspected it wouldn't. She had resigned herself to having to use a Stunner on the poor animal (or even worse, having to witness Snape take care of the threat), when the lion took one last long look at them, turned around and ambled away.

"Lions don't find me tasty." The Doctor grinned. "I don't know why, really."

Snape only shook his head. Hermione considered it best to not say anything.

"Getting back to the business at hand," the Doctor continued, "it would seem that I was rather too, ah, optimistic about fixing our little problem."

"Little problem?" Hermione couldn't help it; she was practically screeching. The meeting with the lion had been too much for her already frayed nerves, and the initial shock was starting to wear off. "There are people DYING out there! Dozens, hundreds, thousands—maybe millions of them! And you're just standing there grinning like some idiot!"

The Doctor shrugged. "You created the problem. Don't blame me. Anyway, let's get back to the TARDIS. I have some more calculations to make."

"Are you going to tell us what you're planning to do once you have found the spot?" In Hermione's experience, patience had never been one of Snape's strong points, and it was clearly starting to wear thin. "Or why we have to accompany you—you've made it perfectly clear that you consider us useless and beneath you."

"You're welcome to stay here," the Doctor said. "You're right. I don't need you; I only need that time travel gadget of yours. Of course, that means you'll never get back home, so…"

Hermione sighed. "Let's get to it, then. You said we don't have much time. Let's not waste any more by standing here and arguing."

* * *

Severus felt a pounding headache coming on. Typical—just when he didn't have any headache relief potion with him! This whole situation... He'd thought he'd done and seen it all, but causing the end of the world was something new, even for him.

And that Doctor was starting to irritate him. He preferred the fellow whose adventures he and Lily had watched together on the telly—her home, of course—before Hogwarts. The real version was considerably more annoying.

Severus didn't care for being patronised, even by a centuries-old alien.

He gritted his teeth and followed the Doctor towards his ship. A look up into the sky confirmed that there was indeed nothing they could do here. Everything seemed to be in order. The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun was blazing, and there was no danger in sight… They'd been on a wild goose chase, and time was running out. Damn that Doctor!

_'What if he's lying to us?'_ a small voice inside his head suggested. _'What if he's not trying to save the world? What if HE brought those creatures with him, and has now led us away from them, so that we couldn't stop them? What if he's the one trying to destroy Earth? We only have his word—that it was our experiments that created this; that we're the ones to be blamed. Is it really so?'_

He fingered his wand. Would Granger hate him if he did what he was thinking of doing? They needed to find out. And there was something _very_ wrong about this whole little adventure—hadn't the Doctor said they were in the Sahara desert? And yet they'd just met a lion? Unless things had changed considerably since their own time, surely that shouldn't have happened?

A thought later, and the Doctor was lying on the sandy ground, immobilised.

"I apologise," Severus said stiffly. "But there are things that are not adding up. _Legilimens!_"

* * *

Severus groaned. He touched his head gingerly, making sure it was still there, and opened his eyes. There was sand in his mouth; he spat it out and pushed himself first to his knees, then up.

That had not been a good idea. He didn't know why he hadn't thought about it, but alien minds were clearly not meant for him to ransack.

Granger was kneeling by the Doctor's side. "Are you all right?" she asked, concern evident in her voice. "I must apologise for the behaviour of my—colleague. If you checked the dictionary for 'paranoid', his face would be the illustration to go with that entry." She threw an irritated glance at Severus.

"I'm just fine." The Doctor jumped up, dusting sand off his jacket. He nodded towards Severus. "Your colleague seems to be worse off. I can understand his suspicions, but if he had questions he wanted to ask, it would have been polite to, you know, just ask them!"

"How do we know you didn't just invite those creatures over?" Severus demanded. "Why should we trust you? And what was that lion doing here?"

"All good questions," the Doctor conceded. "You cannot know that, but I didn't do that. And you should trust me—because I say so." He shrugged. "As for the lion—I suppose it could have been created holographically, as part of some defence mechanism, or it was very real and with a physical body, just man-made. I didn't really get a good look at it. Or it was someone's pet that got loose."

Granger looked from one man to the other. "Fine. Can we get to saving the world now?"

Severus was not remotely happy with the Doctor's flippant answers, but he supposed it had to do. For now.

Not like he had a choice.

"Of course." His lip curled. "After you."

The Doctor took a long look at him. "I hope you won't make me regret turning my back to you once again. I could just leave the two of you here, you know. Maybe then you'll get a chance to find out just how real that lion was."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter ****Five: The Resolution**

_I'm tempted to do what I threatened and just leave those two idiots behind. Why do I always get tangled up in the affairs of humans? It's always the same; they mess things up, and I have to come in and save them. It's their luck that something ties me to this planet—and that I know its timeline. I've seen the end of this world. It's not supposed to happen now. Mankind has a brilliant—at times ugly and painful, but brilliant—future ahead._

_It's my duty to see this through, and while I hate to admit this, I might yet need those two._

* * *

Back in the mercifully cool and fresh-aired interior of the TARDIS, the Doctor went straight to the control panel and flicked on the screen.

"London," he said.

Hermione swallowed. The images on the screen spoke for themselves: the sky, barely visible; swarms of Chronovores everywhere, their massive translucent white wings flapping; vehicles frozen mid-flight, with no one behind the wheel.

"New York." The Doctor flipped the switch again. "Harare. Moscow. Salto. Munich. Rio de Janeiro. Paris. Krakow. Beijing. Christchurch." He turned the screen off.

"It's happening everywhere," Hermione whispered.

"In all the main population centres," the Doctor agreed. "And once they've finished feasting where there are more people, they will move to the less populated areas."

The look on Snape's face was a mixture of disbelief and determinedness. "What are we waiting for? We have work to do."

The Doctor was hunched over some controls. "Here." He pointed at the printout the machine had spat out. "I know I said it before, but I think we have it, now."

He rushed to the central console and pulled a few levers. "Hold on!"

This time, Hermione was better prepared, grabbing hold of the nearest railing. No point in repeating the embarrassing, if interesting incident from earlier. Besides, what if Snape wasn't there to cushion her fall?

Travelling in this thing was almost instantaneous. She'd barely managed to steady herself on her feet when the floor rocked once more and the engines grew quiet.

The Doctor was half-way across the console room and to the door when he stopped and looked back. "Those tricks of yours—can you conjure some warm clothes out of thin air, too? If not, there's a wardrobe down that corridor."

"We'll be fine." Snape looked at Hermione, waiting for her confirmation. At her nod, the Doctor turned around and walked to the door.

"Come on, then!" He didn't wait for them to say anything but disappeared outside.

Hermione spent a moment considering whether to prefer clothes or a Warming Charm. Warm clothes, probably. No need to expand extra energy on keeping up the spell; they might need all their power later. She conjured a warm jacket, winter boots, hat and gloves, and was amused to notice Snape had done the same. She'd never seen him wearing a hat.

"Any idea where we might be?" she asked him.

Snape was inspecting his gloves—black, of course. "I did try to get a look at that printout, but it was in some alien language. Somewhere cold, I presume."

He held out a hand to Hermione. "Shall we?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow. Snape, chivalrous? Well, she wasn't about to complain.

She swallowed a giggle that was threatening to escape. All this—surely she'd have to be feeling horrified? Serious? Focused completely on the terrible situation at hand? On rushing out there, prepared to save the world?

It was all just—too bloody huge. It overwhelmed her. She felt disconnected; a sense of horror was constantly fighting with mundane observations, such as wondering whether the coppery branches above them were really made of copper or if they were some weird, alien trees, or how the Doctor's forehead crinkled when he was analysing the printout, or even how her conjured boots had the exact height of heel that she preferred.

She wondered if Snape felt the same way. He'd never admit it, of course, not even to her, but she was almost sure he was feeling the effects of this whole—thing—the same way, or similar to how she felt. Oh, sure, he'd tried his best to present a calm façade, to convey a sense of being in control… She had actually noticed, during their months of research together, how much better he was at that, compared to her days at Hogwarts, when she mostly remembered Snape as the one teacher prone to losing his temper at the slightest provocation.

But this was under normal circumstances, when he really was in control; she was ready to bet that right now, he was panicking inside.

It didn't matter. She took the hand he was offering her and smiled at him. "Let's go."

* * *

The Doctor was waiting for them outside. For the second time in less than an hour, Hermione had to take a step back and struggle to catch her breath—just that instead of smothering heat, this time they were met by freezing cold; the wind was sparkling, swirling around her, with millions of tiny ice crystals raking their sharp claws on her face.

She closed her eyes, wand firmly in hand, and focused her mind on the shape and texture of woolly mittens. As soon as her gloves had transformed, she added a thick shawl, covering her cheeks and nose and mouth, leaving only her eyes bare.

Snape, she noticed, seemed to make do with a warming charm. The Doctor—he'd seemed completely at home in the African desert, and he looked equally imperturbable now, still wearing nothing warmer than his leather jacket. She wondered what his biological makeup was like: he looked completely human, but his body obviously had a much higher tolerance for extreme temperatures.

"If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say we are somewhere in Antarctica," Snape remarked, his voice raspy with the cold.

"Well guessed." The Doctor gestured ahead. "The rupture is somewhere over there. I didn't want to park the TARDIS right beside it. The fabric of time is delicate, and even I cannot foresee every way in which the current instability might affect her."

He patted the ship—still looking like a dark blue police box on the outside—and closed the door.

"I should warn you that I've detected Chronovore activity nearby," he said. "I don't think there are many here, but some must be using the actual tear to pass through. Try not to, er, emit so much human energy. Thoughts and such. They're drawn to brain activity of higher life forms, and humans make a good snack."

"What about you?" Snape asked. "Would you not seem even tastier to them?"

"I'd be the ultimate feast," said the Doctor. Modesty was obviously not one of his better qualities. "The last of the Time Lords, with an infinitely longer life span than that of a human, with all the possibilities still ahead…" There was an odd glimmer in his eyes, but before Hermione could think about what it might mean, the Doctor turned around and strolled off.

"We'd better get after him," Hermione said.

Snape agreed, and they set off after the Doctor, whose long legs had already taken him far ahead. In the darkness that surrounded them, softened only by a distant glow beyond the horizon and the stars liberally sprinkled all over the sky, letting him disappear out of sight was not something she wanted to risk.

"At least it's not likely that we'll meet any lions here," Hermione said.

Snape's lips twitched. "Quite. Although one never knows."

"If there are Chronovores here…" Hermione wasn't sure how to voice her worry, but Snape had apparently been thinking along the same lines, as he picked up her line of thought.

"…then how will we avoid what we saw in London?" he asked. "Being immobilised, frozen in place?"

"Yes. If they can stop time for people, and we're not going to be near the Doctor's ship, thus outside whatever protective field it generates, how are we going to be able to resist, should we run into one?"

Snape didn't answer instantly.

"Perhaps being in the Doctor's company will help," he said, once they had walked in silence for a few minutes. "If he has some sort of control over time, it is possible that it won't affect him, as he implied earlier. We can hope that this extends further than his person."

Hermione considered this. It sounded possible, but still… "And if it doesn't work like that? Or if we get separated?"

"Then we shall die." Snape didn't even try to hide the obvious irritation in his voice. "Do you still have the prototype? It's also a time control mechanism; in spite of what the Doctor said in London, it's possible that it could protect us."

Deciding it best to just drop the subject, she quickened her pace. Snape kept up with her easily.

"I'm sorry." Snape's apology caught her off-guard; she stumbled on the uneven ice. He put his arm out to steady her. "I didn't mean to be so curt with you. We are in this together; if the Doctor has been telling us the truth, then we've caused this together. I don't particularly fancy dying here and now either."

Hermione looked up into his face. His eyes, glittering in the dim light, and the shadowy outline of his nose gave her an odd sense of comfort. "I know. I didn't really expect you to have a solution, anyway; I was just thinking aloud." She offered him a weak smile. "Apology accepted, in any case. And you're right—I also don't want to die here and now. We didn't win the war and survive just to perish now, taking the whole world with us."

Snape's shoulders relaxed. "Indeed."

* * *

The Doctor was crouching behind a large block of ice. He waved at them, indicating that they should approach carefully.

The reason for the caution was obvious as soon as they had reached him: not far ahead, perhaps a few hundred yards, a Chronovore was floating in the air. His—its? It was impossible to tell with such ethereal beings, for whom a physical form was only an illusion—back was turned towards them, wings spread. Hermione wondered briefly if the shape they took was coincidental or not; the resemblance to how humans had perceived angels for centuries was too striking for her to believe there was no connection. Then again, the Doctor looked entirely human, so perhaps there were some basic shapes that occurred time and time again all over the universe... She made a mental note to ask the Doctor about it, later, should there ever be a good time for it.

"Can it hear us?" She kept her voice low.

"They sense people. Brain activity is what tempts them. Sound doesn't matter much. Neither does movement, usually." The Doctor scratched his head. "I've set the sonic screwdriver on interference, which is why we should try and keep out of its sight. There's no reason to draw its attention to us if we can avoid it. With any luck, it will leave before it notices us."

"And we should just let it go somewhere else, with more people, so it could drain them?"

The Doctor threw Snape an annoyed look. "What do you suggest then, letting it find us? We are—well, I am—the only ones who can put an end to it."

"So the plan is to let it leave," said Hermione, "find the rip, and then…?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Improvise. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need your thingamajig, so keep it at hand."

Hermione exchanged a look with Snape. She wasn't keen on the idea of letting go of her prototype. "We'll get it back though, yes?" she asked. "I mean, we're going to need it to get back to our own time, and—"

"Fools! Haven't you learned anything?" The Doctor took a deep breath. "This thing of yours is dangerous. Dangerous! I cannot allow you to keep using an unauthorised time travel device, especially one that is so clearly unfit for its purpose. Tell me, do you know what year this is? Is this the time you planned to visit? Did you even get the century right?"

Hermione had to close her eyes and count to ten to remain calm. As much as she'd have loved to contradict the arrogant bastard, to tell him that yes, they knew exactly what they were doing—well, he was right, wasn't he?

She shook her head. Snape glowered at the Doctor but didn't say anything either.

"Exactly." The Doctor turned his attention back to the Chronovore, who was still at the same spot but seemed to flicker in and out of existence. "Our friend seems to be leaving. It must have located a suitable feeding area."

* * *

They waited until the Chronovore had disappeared. Once the Doctor was satisfied that they were alone, they walked out into the open.

Hermione revelled in the feel of her magic flowing through her, electrifying every nerve ending, her senses alert and her fingers itching around her wand. Battle instincts at the ready, she thought, a wry smile curving her lips. Even after all these years. Snape might have made fun of her once, months before, but now, when the danger was almost palpable—oh yes, those instincts were still there.

"We don't have long," the Doctor warned. "Another one, or even worse, a whole host of them, may appear any moment. I'm still keeping the interference running, but should they spot us… The Chronovores, like any of the Eternals, with billions of your years of experience, are hardly stupid enough not to recognise a snack when it's right in front of them."

"Why us?" Hermione asked. "If they're so all-powerful and ancient, what could the human mind possibly offer them anyway?"

"Oh, they'd go for the timelines of any intelligent life form." The Doctor's voice was grim. "In their own realm, they feed on the Lux Aeterna, the quantum foam—that's a simplification, of course, but close enough. It's enough for them subsist on, but imagine going through life on a steady diet of boiled cabbage. Timelines, even those of humans, are like dessert—tasty morsels impossible to resist. They get so few opportunities at such feasts that whenever a passage is opened, they will devour all of it, as they might not get another chance for millennia."

"Why isn't this place already teeming with them, if that is the case?" asked Snape.

"Who knows. They're rather independent, solitary beings, and the Six Fold Realm is immense. It's possible that many of them don't know of this pathway yet. And many have already passed through."

The sky above them crackled. Hermione tightened the grip on her wand but relaxed a tiny bit when nothing happened.

"It's here." She had to strain to hear the Doctor's voice, barely above a whisper and full of awe.

Hermione swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. The sight that met their eyes was not what she had expected—not that she had expected anything. "A rip in the fabric of time", "an opening into the time vortex"… those had been just words; words the Doctor had been reeling off his tongue as if they actually meant something.

If anything, she had expected the rip to be metaphorical.

* * *

Severus was standing very still. His eyes were affixed to the heavens above them—or, rather, the jagged, flashing, open wound reaching from the Southern Cross all the way to… He shook his head. Corvus? Could that have been it? He knew his stars at home, but this looked so different.

Why—? How—? They should have seen it from where they'd been hiding earlier, waiting for the Chronovore to leave. The whole world should have seen this! Or perhaps they had seen it, and there was nothing they could do. If there was even anyone still alive to see it…

Severus shuddered and closed his eyes.

He felt the light touch of a mittened hand on his arm. _Hermione._

* * *

"Watch out!" There was an urgency in the Doctor's voice. "It's coming thro—"

All around him, time was stretching like treacle, thick and sluggish.

Severus saw the Doctor reaching for his pocket, dragging his hand through the air at an impossibly slow pace. He could count every drop of sweat burrowing a path downwards on his face, brightly lit in the glow of the white creature floating in front of him.

There was something—there had to be something—they had to do something. Before it was too late. If it wasn't already.

It hadn't seen them yet, the Chronovore. Or if it had, it was ignoring them. For now.

Severus flexed his fingers experimentally. To his surprise, they were moving relatively freely. Perhaps a trifle more slowly than what he was used to, but nothing that would hold him back.

Granger was grasping his arm, her fingers digging into the flesh even through his woolly coat sleeve. She was staring, unblinking, at the Chronovore and the Doctor; her other hand was gripping both her wand and their Time-Turner.

A moment later, she shook her head. "Come on."

Severus wasn't sure what she meant, at first, but when she let go of the Time-Turner, allowing it to hang freely around her neck once again, and adjusted her wand so that it pointed at the creature, he nodded to indicate his understanding. _"Stupefy?"_ The question sounded absurd as it left his lips; what could a Stunner do against a being of unknown powers?

"Something stronger, I think," Granger responded, keeping her voice low. "The body we see may only be an illusion, but perhaps, if we try to focus our blasts at it, that will distract it enough to give the Doctor a chance."

This seemed like the most sensible course of action. "On the count of three?"

At Granger's nod, he started the countdown.

_"__Confringo!"_ Granger cried out at the same time as Severus blasted the creature with a _Bombarda Maxima!_—yelled out at the top of his lungs, as trying to remain unnoticed was hardly an issue any more.

The recoil from their combined efforts threw them down on the hard, icy ground. Blinded by the light and the pain in his left knee, Severus fumbled around, his fuzzy mind not even sure whether he was reaching for his wand or for Granger.

* * *

"Are you two all right?"

Hermione opened her eyes and blinked. Her field of vision was filled with bright, sparkling, jagged lights, but she made out the form of the Doctor, crouching next to her. "I… Uh, I think so." Her voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears. Had there been an explosion, too? "Snape?" she asked, trying to raise her head and look around.

"Here," came a voice from her left. "I'm fine. Mostly."

"What happened?" Hermione asked.

The Doctor stood up. "You blew up the Chronovore. Or its physical form, anyway. Oh, of course it's still alive—the Eternals cannot be destroyed that easily—but it was enough to break its connection to my mind and have it scramble off in a hurry."

He offered Hermione his hand and pulled her up. "I owe you thanks. Both of you," he said. "I resisted the invasion, but even my mental barriers would have given in eventually."

Snape had pushed himself up, too, but Hermione noticed he was favouring his left knee. "Twisted, I think," he said through his teeth. "If you could..."

Hermione thought quickly. Healing spells were not her particular area, but she'd brushed up on her knowledge after the events of her sixth year.

_"__Emendo!"_ she tried, reasonably certain that it wouldn't make things worse, at least. Looking anxiously at Snape, she asked, "Did it work?"

Snape shifted his weight around gingerly. "I think so," he said after a moment. "I'll need to see a Healer eventually, but it will do for now."

The Doctor, who had been following the exchange with a curious look, interrupted them. "We don't have much time. This Chronovore was disassembled, for now, but either it or another will soon be here. That contraption of yours—can I have it?"

Hermione hesitated. That _contraption_ of theirs had just saved them all. But what choice did she have?

"Here." She held it out to the Doctor.

"Thanks." The Doctor looked at her. "I'm sorry. But there really is no other way."

He took a deep breath. "Let's hope this works." And with these words, he hurled the Time-Turner right up into the sky.

"Are you mad?" Snape demanded, his voice incredulous. "It will fall right—"

"No, it won't." The Doctor's grin spoke for itself. "Look."

"But how—?" Hermione blinked rapidly, wondering if she was still suffering from the effects of the temporary blinding. The sky… The sky was knitting itself together, the jagged edges of the tear melting into solid lines, which disappeared as if they'd never been there at all.

"I was counting on the time vortex recognising your gadget for what it was," the Doctor said. "And it did, so it was pulled up and inside, instead of me having to actually throw it all the way into the vortex. Once there, the time anomaly was gone and the fixing could start." He grinned again. "The time vortex is very good at it, really. Fixing itself. It's self-healing to an extent—if people, like you, didn't mess it up constantly, it could manage just fine on its own."

"That seems rather too simple," Snape commented. "Are you saying that this is it? That the rip has been fixed and...?"

"Yup. It is that simple." The Doctor took one last look at the sky, nodded, and started towards the TARDIS.

"Wait!" Hermione ran after him. "What about us? What about—what about all those people? And the Chronovores, are they still here?"

The Doctor stopped. "If I'm right, and I usually am, closing the passage forced the Chronovores to return to their own realm. We can take a look in the TARDIS, but I am quite sure they're all gone. They cannot exist here without that link."

"And the people?" Hermione swallowed, her throat dry. It was a long shot, but… Surely someone was still alive?

"I don't know." Even in the darkness that was surrounding them now, she could see that the Doctor's grin was gone. "If we're lucky—very lucky—then the rip being fixed may have fixed the timeline, too. And the individual timelines of the people who got in the Chronovores' way. With your device gone now, the anomaly is no longer present. I felt something, when the tear was repairing itself…" He shook his head. "Time turned back, but only by a few milliseconds. I don't know whether that was enough."

"The Chronovores froze the time around their victims," Snape said. "Would that have helped?"

"It may have. If we're lucky."

He resumed his stroll back to where they'd left the TARDIS. Hermione looked back to make sure Snape was with them; she doubted that they could find the Doctor's ship again on their own. Or even if they did, with Snape's unerring homing instincts (that he'd boasted about once or twice, apropos nothing, while they were toiling away at fine-tuning the Time-Turner), whether the Doctor would wait for them.

* * *

The Doctor held the door open for them.

"Are you offering us a lift back home?" Granger asked. "After everything…"

"I can hardly leave you stranded here, can I? You don't belong in this time." Not waiting for them to close the door, the Doctor was already busying himself at the controls. "And as I said, I owe you thanks for stopping that Chronovore."

"I suppose those silly sticks of ours are good for something after all." Granger's voice was dripping with irony. Severus resisted a smile; she was so—no, surely not adorable, but… interesting?—when all riled up. She took her magic very seriously.

"I never said they weren't." The Doctor turned around. "Of course, I'd still like to see what your blood is like, but I'm expected elsewhere. Another time, perhaps."

Granger offered him a fleeting smile. She was fidgeting again; there was something else on her mind. Probably the same thing he was thinking about. They couldn't leave, not without finding it out first.

Severus cleared his throat. "Could we just pop back to London for a moment?"

* * *

"Just for a moment," the Doctor reminded. "Don't go far."

They didn't need to. Even in the relatively secluded place where they'd landed, the bustle of city life surrounding them told them all that they needed to know. The hovercraft zooming and zipping above them; a trio of happy, laughing youths, far too obviously in love with one another, passing by (Severus averted his eyes; there were things he had never wanted to know about the habits of people living in the future); the smell of food cooking, wafting towards them from an open window further ahead…

He put his arm carefully around Granger's shoulders. "Shall we go?"

She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "Yes."

The Doctor was waiting for them inside the TARDIS, leaning against the console. "I don't know whether everything returned to the way it was. I doubt it. Some of these people here lost minutes of their lives; some lost years or decades. Some have lost whole timelines—chances of something that might have been but now never will. Just because it all looks right, don't think, not for a moment, that this makes everything fine."

He turned around and started punching some keys. "Your destination? London? About 2003?"

"2004," Granger corrected, her shoulders sagging. She provided the exact date and time of their original departure.

* * *

The Doctor dropped them off close to King's Cross.

"I trust you'll find your way back home from here," he said. "Can I rely on you to stop your experiments?"

Hermione exchanged a look with Snape. All their work… But the Doctor was right; this was a dangerous game they had played.

"With travelling to the future, yes." There was a roughness in Snape's voice that tended to become more obvious when he was emotional over something. "We shall not—cannot—stop the research into small scale time travel into the past. We had that skill before. We have—had—the instruments to achieve that. There is a whole department of people working on it; we couldn't possibly tell them to stop. Not without telling them about all this."

The Doctor considered his words. "Fair enough. Your past endeavours have slipped under my radar, so I suppose they're innocent enough. You have some basic rules in place, I suppose? Not changing the course of events; not allowing your past selves to see your future selves—all that?"

Hermione nodded. "Of course. And no one would be allowed access to a Time-Turner without a clear explanation of how to handle it. Few people have ever even been aware of them and the possibility. We don't just let anyone have one!"

Snape raised an eyebrow, which she ignored.

"What if someone else, in the future, works it out?" Hermione asked. "I mean—we did. It's only logical that others may have the same idea."

"I'll deal with that once that day comes. With luck, it won't happen for a long while yet. Perhaps it will only happen once your people are better equipped to understand and control that power." The Doctor had a haunted look in his eyes. Hermione thought it better not to pry.

"I guess that's good-bye, then," she ventured. She wasn't sure how she felt. "Thank you. For coming to help. I—I'm sorry. We really had no idea."

"All in a good day's work." The Doctor's grin was back, although his eyes still looked troubled. "Just don't make me come and rescue you again, eh?"

"No chance of that." Snape started to turn but stopped abruptly. "We keep our promises."

* * *

Hermione resisted the temptation to look back, as they were putting distance between themselves and the blue box, which looked as incongruous in their own London as it had on the icy fields of Antarctica. Maybe... She wondered if the Doctor ever got lonely. He had mentioned being expected somewhere else.

She had almost made up her mind to stop and run back, to wish him good luck, when the now-familiar groaning, wheezing sound behind them made it clear that it was too late.

She was surprised when she felt Snape's hand take hers. "You were sighing," he informed her in a mock-serious tone. "I didn't want you to lose your footing, in case your mind was elsewhere."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Snape stopped, causing her to stumble. "Are you all right?" This time there was nothing mocking in his words or their delivery. "This… Everything that happened, today."

Hermione shrugged. "I think so. I can't help but feel guilty. I suppose that all ended well, but what if— What we saw… I guess it might give me some new material for nightmares, at least."

"Don't." He put his hands on her arms, holding her awkwardly. "Don't blame yourself. We're both to blame—if anyone is. Neither of us could know this would happen. And it won't happen again."

Hermione looked into his eyes, deep and dark in the waning light of the late summer night. _No, it won't happen again. Because we've achieved our goal—we both know now how to make a working Time-Turner of the kind we had before. No more reason for evenings shared in research. No more reason for us to meet again._

Aloud, she said, her voice wavering only slightly, "Would you care to stay for dinner?"

_The End._

* * *

Disclaimer: Hermione Granger, Severus Snape and the Harry Potter universe belong to JK Rowling. The Doctor Who universe and the Doctor belong to the BBC. Inspiration has been drawn from a variety of sources, including, but not limited to, the televised _Doctor Who_ stories _Father's Day_ and _The Time Monster_ as well as the novel _The Quantum Archangel_ by Craig Hinton.


End file.
